Halo: The Wilds
Part One Escape Fire. The smell of burning metal still lingered in the air despite his helmet's attempt to filter it out. Even miles away, Cailean could still smell the fire from the depot as he ran as fast as he could through the forest. Had his plan worked? He had no way of knowing, though he had a sickening feeling it hadn't. Despite that, he had to move with the assumption his friends and more importantly, ONI, thought he was dead, consumed with his armor in the explosion that destroyed the depot. He hadn't, but others had and it was his fault. Their handler had told them the camp was a supply depot for the local insurrection, storing large quantities of arms and munitions. While the rest of his team had been ordered to assist Marines in assaulting a nearby stronghold, Cailean alone had been sent to plant charges to destroy the site. He had finished in record time, evading detection by the relatively sparse patrols despite his hefty suit of MJOLNIR Mark VI. He should've known something was wrong then and there—not even the rebels would leave such an important target so poorly defended, but he wasn't thinking about that. It wasn't until after the smoke cleared he realized the true extent of what he had done. Inside the burning storehouses thought to contain rifles and ammunition lay dozens of charred bodies, dressed not in sloppy fatigues and chop shop body armor, but torn and ragged shirts, pants, and dresses. These weren't rebels, they were civilians. Families. And he had killed them all without even thinking about it. His mind raced, did ONI know, could they have known? Did they know and didn't tell him? No, of course not, ONI was willing to do many things, even abandon civilians to the Covenant onslaught on Earth, but straight up ordering the mass murder of innocent people wasn't their MO. Despite all of this, his mind couldn't help but reach a single, disgusting conclusion, that the Office of Naval Intelligence had ordered him to murder these people in cold blood. His gut wrenched and his knees gave out underneath him, only barely reacting in time to stop himself from face planting on the hard, cold dirt. He threw his helmet off and vomited. He had seen plenty of horror during the war with the Covenant, seen entire worlds engulfed in flame, things that would outclass this a million times over, but never once had he been the cause of it. After a minute, he picked up his helmet and slowly rose to his feet, his disgust replaced with a sheer, unrelenting anger. Someone had to pay for this, he thought, and someone would, but not now. First, he had to get away from here, somewhere safe to calm himself, to plan his next moves, which meant getting off this planet. And so he ran, into the forest and towards the nearest space port. There were only a handful of major ports on Oyster Point, all of which would be locked down by the UNSC at this point. Instead, he headed towards Sheldon's Landing, a small facility deep behind rebel lines. ONI had identified it as a possible evacuation point for the rebels when things started to go bad, and he hoped so, because that meant ships prepped and ready for flight. He could still hear the fighting off in the distance, steady and rhythmic like a heartbeat. Artillery boomed and machine guns rattled off and men died in their droves, but all he could hear was the sound of a ticking clock, telling him how much longer he had before the UNSC broke through the rebel lines and made a mad dash towards the spaceport, hoping to cut off all avenues of escape. He couldn't let that happen, ONI didn't know he had gone AWOL yet, but if he were found this far from his last known position, it wouldn't take much before someone put the pieces together *** An hour or so later, he could finally see the light from the spaceport shining through the trees. The fighting had gotten closer, if he had to guess he'd say it was within five miles of the port. He need to move fast, but he didn't want to risk just rushing it as any open confrontation would slow him down. He couldn't let his sense of urgency cause him to be reckless with this. He skulked down the side of the hill and made his way towards the large chain link fence separating the main compound from the wilderness surrounding it. It took little effort for him to launch himself over the fence, the boots of his armor thudding against the ground, though he didn't worry about anyone hearing it, the ever encroaching gunfire drowning out all but the loudest noises. The port was bustling with activity, as insurgents ran to and from ships and warehouses, loading every crate they could onto their fleet of freighter craft, each being fueled as best they could. A trio of ships sealed their hatches and slowly took off from their pads, lumbering away into the air before disappearing from sight. That means the UNSC hasn't scrambled air defenses yet. Good, He knew it wouldn't last long once word got back that rebel ships were beginning to launch, meaning he had to hurry. He took cover behind a large group of crates, surveying the landing pads in front of him. It didn't take long before he identified a ship preparing to leave, the W. K. Alexander. The ship had a light detail guarding it and seemed to be stuffed with cargo, the perfect take. He reached for his rifle but hesitated, Can't waste a lot of ammo, going to have to conserve. Instead he reached for his M6G sidearm. He gave himself to the count of three before propelling himself around the corner, bringing his pistol to bear on the nearest insurgent. Instinctively, he pulled the trigger, the round hitting the man in his shoulder, spinning him around before he fell to the ground. The other Innies spun towards the sudden gunshot only to lay eyes on the Spartan. Several ran away while others surrendered on the spot, he didn't care about any of them as long as they didn't stop him from getting on that ship. He gunned down another rebel standing at the front of the boarding ramp, jumping over the body and into the cargo bay. A rebel on the catwalk overlooking the bay drew his rifle, an antiquated MA2B, and fired. The rounds simply impacted harmlessly against his shields as he raised his own pistol and fired, placing a round right between the man's eyes. The dead man fell off the catwalk to the deck below and Cailean simply ran past him on his way to the bridge. After only the briefest moment of confusion, he made it to the bridge only to be met with more gunfire as the pilot opened fire on him with his handgun. Cailean walked over to the man and picked him up by the throat and slammed him against the bulkhead, "You'll fly this ship out of here or I'll blow your head off. Understand?" The pilot rapidly nodded in the affirmative. Cailean sat him down and gestured to the pilot's chair with his handgun. Moments later and the ship was airborne, the rebels on the ground firing at it to no avail. The craft lumbered through the air as it began picking up speed, the pings of gunfire off the hull rapidly fading away as the ship increasingly gained altitude. Suddenly a warning light flashed up on the main console and a klaxon sounded throughout the ship, somehow managing to drown out the sound of the engines. Cailean moved up next to the pilot, pistol in hand, "What is that?" The rebel was sweating as he looked down at the various readouts, "Oh shit, they've sent Longswords. They're on an intercept course, we're so dead, there's no way this thing can outrun them." Cailean felt a twinge of sympathy for the man, knowing he was right. He sighed and moved the man out of the chair as gently as he could, taking his place quickly looking over the control panels. I didn't think this through very well, did I? Nevertheless, he gripped the manual controls and readied himself. All the Spartans had received at least basic training for operating aircraft, how hard could it be? As it turned out, it wasn't as hard as he thought, though the controls were a lot more sluggish than the simulator they had trained in as children. He made a mental note in order to adjust his moves to compensate just as the klaxon changed from a proximity warning to that of a target lock, Missiles. Shit. He pressed a button labeled "External Cameras" and quickly swapped through them until he found one of the rear facing cameras just in time to see the ASGM-10 missile flying towards the ship. He did a once over of the console, confirming the ship had no countermeasures of any kind, leaving him with few options. Glancing back at the camera, he waited for the missile to close the gap a little more before throwing the ship into a high G turn in an attempt to throw its guidance systems off. It didn't work, however, and the missile continued on its trajectory, only now much closer, close enough that the klaxon had once again changed, this time into a high pitched whine. Shit, this isn't good. Need to think... His eyes darted all over the console and the secondary panels hanging overhead. Most of what he saw either didn't make any sense or he knew wouldn't help, but he wasn't ready to give up yet, there just had to be something, anything. There it was, off in the corner of one of the overhead panels, a tiny, inconspicuous switch labeled "Inertial Dampeners". With lightening speed, his arm shot out and flipped the switch so quickly that he was afraid he may have broken it. Cailean's fear was quickly alleviated as the ship shook for a second as the inertial dampeners distributed around the ship began shutting down, causing the ship's controls to feel "looser" in a way. While this did increase the chance of being crushed to death by extreme G forces, something he hoped his armor would negate, it also disarmed safety features and allowed the ship to be more maneuverable. The missile was now right on top of him, he wouldn't have much time to put his plan into action and he'd only have one shot at it. If he failed, well... he figured Hell probably looked nice this time of year. He took both hands off of the manual controls and hovered over engine controls. One hand sent all spare power to the RCS thrusters on the ship's dorsal side, causing a massive amount of downward thrust at the same time as he cut power to the main engines, causing the ship to rapidly fall through the air as the missile continued onward before it finally ran out of fuel and began losing altitude, falling to the world below. He looked at the cameras again to check for anymore incoming missiles, spying the Longswords flying overhead, having been unprepared for the simple freighter to pull off a move like that. This was his chance, Cailean pushed the ship as hard as he could to return to his original altitude, though this time he was behind the fighters. Having identified the ship's armament control while looking for countermeasures, he quickly activated them, the ship's two 25mm autocannons came to life as they loaded in their ammunition. He brought up the targeting system and aimed for the nearest Longsword and opened fire, the significantly slower rounds flying toward their target. The first few missed, but as the Longsword continued, it flew right into the path of the rest of them, the large caliber rounds slamming into the ship's armor. Smoke began pouring out of one of its engines and after a moment, it broke off and fled the area. Cailean smiled behind his helmet, he wasn't looking to kill anyone else, especially UNSC, so simply forcing them out of the fight was good enough for him.